


sylvain is alone.

by ProHeroKali



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22743226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProHeroKali/pseuds/ProHeroKali
Summary: They'd parted that night with a promise to meet again, and then Felix was gone. Vanished into the wilds with not even a notice to Byleth, never mind Sylvain.And none of them had seen him since.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Kudos: 37





	sylvain is alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of Sylvain and Felix's non-AM route pair ending, because who needs a happy ending, amirite? ;w;

The handwriting was familiar, efficient and disciplined, much like the hand that penned it, in a dark blue ink that could have only come from the palace – Dimitri's letters, the once-upon-a-time where he used to send them regularly, were always in the same color. The parchment also had to be from the palace, slightly yellowed, trimmed in an official looking blue design. It was speckled in long dried blood and smudged with dirt and clearly not well-maintained, as expected.

On the face of the envelope, which had been wrapped in twine to hold it closed and served to make the whole thing look that much more of a mess, was his name, written in the same disciplined hand: Sylvain Gautier.

These letters arrived every so often at his residence. Sometimes weeks would pass between one to the next, sometimes months - once, two years, and Sylvain had never quite known anxiety like those years, not since his childhood, at least. Reading the next letter that came after was like a two-ton rock being lifted from his chest, and it was only then that he allowed himself to acknowledge why exactly it had affected him so much.

Each of the letters was similar in content. No greeting, no explanation for himself. A brief summary of what he's been doing, anything important he's done or seen. Small hints to the places he's been, never any confirmation of where he currently was. Several scribbled out farewells where he apparently couldn't find a proper sign-off, before he settled on just his name. No house name, no family name, just-

Felix.

And no ability to write back.

Finishing the newest of these haphazardly thrown together glorified confirmations of Felix's non-dead status, Sylvain did what he did every time one arrived and sat in his personal study, lighting an irresponsible amount of candles with which to see and smoothing out the letter on his desk. From the topmost drawer on his right, he pulled out a thick, leather-bound notebook – a gift from Bernadetta, where she'd made him promise to try writing something himself if he was going to continually badger her about her own. Instead, the notebook became his last fleeting hope of ever tracking Felix down.

Flipping open to where he'd left off, he set to work, pulling out an owl quill and inkwell and beginning to rewrite the letter. He was slow, meticulous, savoring every stroke of his quill as he unconsciously tried to mimic Felix's fine handwriting (a fool's errand – Sylvain's handwriting was sloppy, frivolous, an unexpected indicator of the boy he used to be, and the man he had to fight not to become).

He made a conscious effort to not hear the words in Felix's voice; he tried once, and all it did was make his heart sink heavy into his gut, and he ended up spending the next several hours after in the wine cellar, like he was trying to purge it back out. By that point, he couldn't deny how deep he was sunk anymore.

Once finished, he set the quill aside and, from the same drawer, retrieved a small wooden box and a map. Opening the box revealed it was full of similarly banged up and dingy letters, all neatly tucked inside. Setting aside the map, Sylvain took the newest, giving it a lingering, ambivalent look, before neatly folding it and tucking it in with its brothers. He hesitated only for a moment before putting the box away.

He let out a sigh and then picked up the map, spreading it out next to the notebook; centralized in the area of Fódlan that once was Faerghus were a hundred small circles, each with a number written beside it.

He then grabbed his quill, and with it, he went through the recreated letter once again, circling details that might be important, making note of all of the towns and cities Felix mentioned, all the while running through a map of the areas in his head.

By now, Sylvain knew the land formerly known as the Kingdom of Faerghus like he knew the most secluded areas of the monastery. Felix had to be _somewhere_ within its borders, and the longer this distance lasted, the longer this one-sided communication continued, Sylvain couldn't sit in this empty manor doing _nothing_.

So, with every new crumb of information on a town worked or a city passed-through, Sylvain kept track, marking each place Felix had even written about in passing, keeping notes on the probability that he was still there, of how far he could have gone, if anyone under his power had heard anything of the spitfire swords-master that had once been a part of the effort to unite all of Fódlan, now working as a self-isolated merc-for-hire.

Nothing had come of it yet, but that didn't- wouldn't- c _ouldn't_ stop Sylvain. He had to do _something_.

As he began to mark the newest locations and jot down notes as they came to him, a familiar feeling of frustration began to rise in his chest. Each new circle, none of them overlapping, only occasionally sharing a road between them, brought with it a sense of helplessness, as every new mark meant a thousand new directions Felix could have gone, and meant that Sylvain was no closer to finding him.

This method was imperfect, of course it was - a last ditch, desperate effort by a man that was finding the whole endeavor more and more pointless every entry.

But what else could he do?

Felix as Sylvain last knew him popped into his head. Dressed in his casual clothes for once, hair longer than it'd been during the war, sour as ever. They'd been sitting together outside Sylvain's manor, discussing his decision to become Margrave, of what Felix was planning now that the war had ended, pointedly avoiding discussion of the consequences their betrayal of their once-kingdom had wrought. Things that Sylvain had known ate at Felix every day.

(he could claim all he liked that he never expected the Boar King to be saved, but the truth of his despair was evident in every quiet moment he'd thought Sylvain was too frivolous to notice)

They'd parted that night with a promise to meet again, and then Felix was gone. Vanished into the wilds with not even a notice to Byleth, never mind Sylvain.

And none of them had seen him since.

“ _Fuck_ , Felix...” Sylvain suddenly burst, nearly startling himself. “Where _are_ you?”

The frustration in Sylvain's chest finally sank to the pit of his stomach and settled as a deep, gutting kind of mourning. He dropped his quill and slumped onto his desk, holding his head in his hands.

The words Byleth had told him once after he'd gone to her with his concern replayed in his head.

“ _I'm so sorry, Sylvain, but... If Felix doesn't want to be found, he won't be_.”

Wiping his hands down his face, Sylvain stood abruptly. He folded up the map, put away his inkwell, and closed his book. Opening the drawer, he replaced each item, slamming the drawer shut with a little more force than intended.

Byleth was right. Felix wouldn't be found, not unless he surfaced on his own accord. Sylvain knew that, he'd always known that; and yet, he still kept trying to play this impossible game of hide and seek, letter after letter, year after year, as if something, anything would change that. Like a child at the bottom of a well, trying desperately to claw his way out only to slide back down every time.

Sylvain grimaced. He hadn't thought about that in a very long time. Lately, though, he had to admit that some days it felt like he was down there once again, trapped in that dark, watery depth, pushed in by his own Miklan-sized ego. And this time, no one was there to pull him up.

His mind turned to Dimitri. Ingrid. The ones that had saved him then, who he'd considered like little siblings, once upon a time. He'd never really mourned them, had he? The rush of war made processing the things they'd had to do harder, and Sylvain wasn't really one for “processing”. Not when hiding it under a thin veneer of _Everything Is Okay_ was enough to make it through the day.

Still, they were gone. He and Felix were the last of their friends, of their house, spared only by virtue of a childish lack of foresight.

Maybe that was why he tried so hard to cling to Felix now.

Maybe that was why Felix tried so hard to push him away.

… Sylvain shook his head. More wasted efforts. Pointless ruminations. None of this... mattered.

He sat back down in his chair and, leaning forward, blew out the candles on his desk one by one, watching as the room grew dimmer and dimmer, until the last one flickered out, plunging the room into a cold, isolating darkness.


End file.
